These rules should give you a good idea about the format of the event. However, the format and rules may change this time around!

Rules from Puzzle Party 2007

By now you should have already formed a team of players, introduced each other and designated a captain of the team.

Here are the general rules of this event. Some of the puzzles may have their own rules to earn specific points. These rules are mentioned along with the puzzle text below.

1. The referees reserve the rights to make decisions and adjust rules if required.

2. At 2 PM, the Puzzle Masters will go over the rules and logistical aspects for 15 minutes.

3. Starting at 2:15 PM, the teams will be given 15 minutes to go over the paper and review all the puzzles.

4. The clock will start at 2:30 PM sharp. You will have 3 hours to complete answers to the puzzles. It is not necessary to complete all of the puzzles.

5. Teams will be given 3 sets of question papers for the entire team. One of them will have color print out and other two will be black and white. Some of the puzzles require you to view the color copies (it is not indicated though).

6. We recommend that you to read all of the problems first, before starting any of them. If anything is unclear, do not hesitate to ask the referee for clarification (please do not ask for hints or answers!).

7. You are requested to rate the puzzles on two parameters: How difficult was the puzzle and how much did you enjoy it (simply rate the puzzles on the scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most enjoyable and difficult). This will help us improve these for future. These can be done during the post-puzzle session.

8. Most problems will have a space to write answers down. Be sure to write your answers clearly and in the appropriate places. Scoring of ambiguous answers will be left to the Puzzlemaster’s discretion. Please give one master copy with answers to the Puzzle Masters.

9. Some problems may require you to demonstrate an answer to the referee without writing it down. Unless otherwise noted, you may do this at any time during the contest (the referee will write down any earned points in your booklet). For this type of problem, if you have submitted an answer and then later improve upon your solution (if allowed), you may submit the better answer to the referee for more points.

10. You cannot use books, calculators, internet, cell phones, slide rules, log tables, computers or any other aid devices other than paper, pencil and your brain.

11. Inter-team collaboration to solve the puzzles will not be allowed.

12. When time expires the referee will collect all of the Puzzle Booklets (be sure you have recorded all of your answers). Grading will occur as quickly as possible, and prizes awarded immediately thereafter. You may be called upon to grade other team’s answers.

13. The referees will use a number of dictionaries to validate the answers to word puzzles. Certain puzzles may ask you to find words satisfying various conditions. To be valid, a word must appear in one of those dictionaries, in which it must be either listed in boldface or be an inflected form of a boldface entry. Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are acceptable only if specified after a boldface entry, but noun plurals and verb forms are acceptable if clearly implied by the inflectional patterns of related words. Words may contain accent marks.

A word is unacceptable if it:

1. is composed of two or more component words separated by a space, or appears only as a component part;

2. contains an apostrophe, hyphen, or period;

3. is designated as capitalized or usually capitalized;

4. is listed only as an abbreviation or symbol.

Good luck!

Hiren Bhatt (yhiren@yahoo.com)

Ravi (Pattabi) Venkatesan (pvenkate01@yahoo.com)